Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

Listeners at KBIO radio in Boise were asked to participate in a (self-selecting) online survey about President Barack Obama. Results on which they think describes the president best:

A foreign born Muslim – 49%
A foreign born Christian – 3%
An American born Muslim – 7%
An American born Christian – 22%
A president with really big ears – 20%

“Foreign-born Muslim” was actually up to 55% yesterday.

Where do these people get their misinformation – garbage that has been so repeatedly debunked over a period of years? In the case of this poll, the participants presumably were mostly KBOI listeners – local home of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talkers. Given that, the surprise may be that the 49% or 55% isn’t even higher.

It’s worth noting once again, just because so much anti-federal wind comes from Idaho, especially in this campaign season.

One of the biggest and best single pieces of economic development in Idaho in the last few years has been a massive wind power project that stands to take advantage of the often fierce winds blowing across the Snake River plains. How substantial an economic development this is shows up in a post by the state Department of Commerce:

GE and its partners, including Boise-based Exergy Development Group, have already begun building the Idaho Wind Partners project – 11 wind farms along the Oregon Trail from Hagerman to Burley.

The $500 million project will become Idaho’s biggest wind project and one of the largest in the entire Pacific Northwest. Once completed, the 11 farms will be able to generate 183 megawatts, enough to power 39,700 Idaho homes.

The project will create 175 construction jobs, 25 permanent jobs and, using federal Energy Department estimates, will support 2,200 full-time jobs a year nationwide. Eight of those jobs are with Precision Communications, which installed 43 miles of fiber optic cable that connects the wind turbines by computer, so they can be remotely shut on and off and monitored.

Jim Woodhead, president of PreCom, said he’s glad Idaho is catching up with its neighbors – Washington, Oregon and Montana – which all have more wind generation than Idaho.

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, who better than anyone else exemplifies the attitude that Idaho is just full of rugged individualists who get ‘er done as long as the feds stay off their backs, commented: “Otter said the development of the wind industry is the newest chapter in Idaho’s long history of creating its own power using renewable sources …”

Just below that, though, the department post goes on to say this: “The project was made possible by the 2005 federal energy bill, which included a grant to developers who could begin construction by the end of the year. “This project wouldn’t exist save for the federal grant,” [GE Energy Financial Services President and CEO Alex] Urquhart said. He said more wind projects like this will not be possible unless federal clean energy legislation is passed.”

Those nasty feds, seeding Idaho business again …

A question.

This comes out of news today that Conoco-Phillips, which has sought and gotten permits to run mega-sized trucks down the narrow and winding Highway 12 between Lewiston and Missoula, is appealing a decision by 2nd District Judge John Bradbury which blocks those trips, at least for now.

The appeal, of course, goes to the Idaho Supreme Court, for which Bradbury was earlier this year was a candidate, losing to one of the incumbents. That’s one interesting aspect of this; there seems to be some presumption that Bradbury may be overturned. We’ll see.

Our assumption has been that most people in the area have been opposed to the traffic of these massive trucks on a road that seems so unsuitable for them. (Travel via, say, Interstate 90 to the north might present some issues but on its face seem a lot more logical.) But is that so?

One commenter on the Lewiston Tribune story about this offered: “This is a waste of a lot of peoples time and efforts for such a small minority of opposers.” The formal (as if legal filing) number of “opposers” is of course small. But what’s the sense of how people overall in the area view this?

This has a feel of significance to it:

Two months ago, in an effort to boost the candidacy of its 1st U.S. House district nominee Raul Labrador, the Idaho Republican Party said it was hiring two staffers that would be assigned directly to help in that race. (Here’s the release about one of them.) It was an implicit acknowledgement that the race was not easy – incumbent Democrat Walt Minnick had several advantages including a big money lead – but also an expression that the party would make a special effort to get behind the candidate.

In reports today, the Associated Press says that the two staffers won’t be so strictly assigned; their work instead will be much more based around general party activities.

One reason, which the party indicates, may be legal. There are legal limitations on how money not contributed directly to a congressional campaign can be used for it. Of course, that was true in June too.

But you get the sense that the resources could have been found, if the party were determined enough to get the assistance to Labrador. Was there a shift in priorities?

Might be that too much shouldn’t be made of this. But keep watch, and see what else in the coming weeks fit into a pattern.

There are supposed to be four debates in the Idaho gubernatorial campaign upcoming, and if the first – in Idaho Falls, Thursday – is a reasonable guide, the next three ought to be entertaining at least. And something of a marker of the real differences between Republican Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and Democratic candidate Keith Allred. Who “won” may depend on the world view you bring with you; what you got was a fair representation of both candidates.

(No full video of the event, backed by the Idaho Falls City Club, seems to be available. But Idahoans and others can listen for now at least to a stream uploaded by . . . someone, to an online storage site. Of that ogg vorbis stream doesn’t float your browser, there’s an mp3 available too.)

A generic gripe: Both tossed in so many references to the “founding fathers” that you began to wonder if either of them really understands that the year is 2010, not 1790. But then, this is an Idaho Falls audience.

Otter has traditionally gotten underrated as a debater, but over the years he has consistently shown some skill at it, and did again on Thursday. He sounded a little bombastic, often, and an angry tone seemed to seep in regularly; he only occasionally sounded like the happy warrior of yore. (He’s mostly having to defend now, not launch a crusade.)

But he slipped in some neat jabs at Allred, notably at the Democrat’s proposals to chop out some as-yet-unnamed sales tax exemption, which Otter routinely described as tax increases (which as a matter of practice is what they would be).

At one point in a rebuttal, Otter delivered a question to Allred, and Allred – stepping outside the debate rules – went ahead and answered it. To which Otter slipped in, “That doesn’t mean under the rules you get to reply” – drawing laughter.

But Allred got some laughter of his own (and showed off his own debate skilled) when he quickly answered, “It’s good to do this with a career politician who has learned all the tricks.” Continue Reading »

The matter of the giant trucks that want to use Idaho’s slice of Highway 12 – a thin, twisting road that tests even drivers of compact cars – might yet turn into a genuine political issue.

The point was laid out neatly in a comment on an Idaho Statesman story today about a lawsuit filed to block the truck traffic. The comment says in part: “So let’s get this straight: one of the largest multi-national corporations – with no ties to Idaho, wants to block both lanes of an Idaho highway, create an extreme traffic and environment hazard in our state, to haul South Korean made equipment, on the way to harvest oil in Canada? ..then we get to pay to rebuild our torn-up road when they are done with their 200 oversize loads? did I get that right?”

Have a look at Fighting Goliath, an energetic web site on the subject.

Wer’ll be getting into looks at the legislative situation, but for the moment an overview from Governing magazine, where veteran Louis Jacobson has taken a look at prospects in all 50 states.

No reason here to quarrel with the assessment, which ranks Idaho “safe Republican” and Washington and Oregon “likely Democratic.” A fair number of states are teetering in party control, but these three don’t seem to be among them.

We get e-mail by the hundreds every day. We get e-mail we don’t want. We also get a lot of e-mail from places where we sought it out, from governmental offices, corporations, sundry organizations. Some of it is useful stuff, and we’re glad to get it. (We also, may as well note it, use e-mail to deliver our weekly Digests.) We’ve seldom had much difficulty getting ourselves added to e-mail lists. Why should we? Costs nothing.

On the other hand David Frazier, of the Boise Guardian blog, recently got this in his mail, from the Boise Police Department:

Dave -

FYI – You are no longer on the “media” email list. The list is for media only. Feel free to call me at my desk on this or any other issue.

take care -

Lynn

He wasn’t dropped from the list because he asked to be; he was dropped because, well, he evidently isn’t considered to be “media.” So here we go again: Someone who wants to limit the circle of communications so as to define someone as outside.

And apparently a growing list. Frazier wrote that “The Police and Fire departments have now fallen in line with the rest of Boise”s information manipulators in denying us access to routine announcements and updates. We don’t claim any special status since we really represent the public’s ‘right to know,’ but we should not suffer discrimination at the hands of our government either.”

Why the Boise agencies shouldn’t include anyone who asks for the public news releases – the point of which is supposed to be to disseminate information as broadly as possible – would be a good question. And, in this day of changing means of information delivery, more manageable anyway.

And the city may find it more time-effective if, as we’d suspect, Frazier’s response is to step up rather than ease back on his requests for information. One way or another.

While Idaho’s politicians debate about transportation costs, they might pause for a few minutes to look over this video – part of which comes from a keenly innovative business at Sagle, near Sandpoint – describing what the next generation of roads across the nation ought to look like.

Their case goes beyond compelling; this is a vid everyone should see. Just four and a half minutes long.

Hat tip to Barrett Rainey.

Walt Minnick (center) gets the associated contractors endorsement on Wednesday/Minnick campaign

Walt Minnick, Idaho’s 1st district Democratic representative, must be living right. Four months ago, this space had no serious doubts that he was unlikely to win re-election. Today (and really for the last month or two), he looks to have a clear path to re-election.

That’s not a change of mind. It’s a change of circumstance. And today, as the the Associated General Contractors of Idaho deliver their endorsement for Minnick, seems as reasonable a time as any to talk about that.

Some things from four months ago have not changed, or changed a lot. Minnick’s status as an incumbent has undoubtedly helped; Idaho voters don’t lightly toss out major-office incumbents, even Democrats – ousting no major-office Democrat since 1994, while re-electing several of them in the years since. And Minnick and his campaign people have been aware since election day 2008 that the re-election campaign had to start right then, and they’ve been at it aggressively ever since. Their campaign has made hardly any slips. Also, Minnick may not be Mr. Charisma, but he makes a positive impression, and a lot of people around the district like him. That includes a lot of Republicans.

The problems have been – and if Minnick does lose, still are – larger-picture. A whole lot of Idaho Republicans and a lot of independents – who in Idaho lean strongly Republican – simply are loathe to vote for a Democrat and would hesitate to do it with a gun at their heads; our estimate is that 45% of the 1st district electorate is in this category. The political atmosphere this year, magnified somewhat in Idaho, should make that even more true. And while Minnick has taken great care to not upset Republicans, he has upset a lot of Democrats. Some of them will be less inclined to work as hard for him. Some of them – we’ve talked to a number of veteran Democratic activists – say they simply will deny him their vote in November.

That’s a formula for a Minnick loss. But since late winter, the calculus has changed in a big way on the Republican side. No election is ever won or lost for just one reason; but that change now looks to be the biggest reason Minnick probably will win this year.

Last winter, the Republicans had in Vaughn Ward a candidate well positioned for the race. Several components went into that. He appeared to have come out of nowhere, and a year ago effectively dispatched an established state legislator (Ken Roberts) months before the primary. He did that partly on the basis of sounding like the kind of Republican firebrand taking off around the country.

But two things happened. Continue Reading »

Bob Kustra

We were wondering some weeks back when the celebration broke loose about Boise State University athletics joining the Mountain West conference whether all the social elements – and not just the financial elements – had been fully worked through. The nagging point was this: The conference shift probably would mean that Boise State’s Bronco football team would quit playing, at least most years, the University of Idaho Vandals. That point was noted in reports and discussions at the time, but downplayed or buried.

It shouldn’t have been. The BSU-UI match has for decades been the big athletic event in Idaho. It’s a big deal for a lot of people. Maybe not quite on the scale of the University of Oregon/Oregon State Civil War to the west, but a Big Deal nonetheless.

Now that’s coming home to roost. BSU President Bob Kustra, ordinarily a careful and diplomatic speaker, trash-talked (at an Idaho Statesman editorial board meeting) the UI, calling its culture “inebriated” and “nasty,” and suggested in essence that BSU had no reason to lower itself to that level. And that if BSU never plays the UI again, great.

Coming from Kustra, who’s sometimes been mentioned as a prospect for political office (but probably not again in Idaho), those remarks are a little stunning. Most university presidents are a lot more even-tempered about their fellow institutions; they do, after all, often have to work together.

Now Kustra’s comments, which he seems not to be walking back, in combination with the already-sore matter of a tossed tradition, have blown up. Today, Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter was asked what he was going to do about it. Otter did about as much as he could, which was to express support for the traditional game while pointing out (correctly) that football scheduling really isn’t in his bailiwick. You might guess, though, that some of the state Board of Education members will be getting a call from him sometime soon.

This isn’t anywhere near over yet, and it’s hard to see where exactly it does end . . .

/Payette National Forest

Remember some months back when a big blowup occurred over University of Idaho studies of whether diseases and other problems associated with domestic sheep might harm wild bighorn sheep?

Today, the upshot demonstrating why that was a blowup: A Payette National Forest record of decision restricting agricultural sheep to less than a third of the land they historically have used. It was written – and decided – by Payette Forest Supervisor Suzanne Rainville.

Here’s background from the decision:

Only portions of two bighorn sheep metapopulations remain on the Payette National Forest, one within Hells Canyon of the Snake River and the other among the Salmon River Mountains. Historically, these populations were likely connected by suitable habitats between the two major drainages and recently, bighorn sheep have been observed travelling from Hells Canyon to the Salmon River and back again. More than 10,000 bighorn sheep may have once lived in the Hells Canyon and surrounding mountains, but they were extirpated by the mid-1940s. Through reintroduction, 474 bighorn sheep were transplanted into Hells Canyon between 1971 and 2004. Seven die-offs have been reported since 1971. Today, the population is estimated at 850 animals. The Salmon River metapopulation was never extirpated. Winter population surveys conducted in 2001,2003, and 2004 document at least 508 bighorn sheep within the various drainages of the Salmon River and 210 bighorn sheep in the South Fork Salmon River and Main Salmon River. Historic accounts of major die-offs of bighorn sheep in the Salmon River Mountains began in approximately 1870. The population has experienced periodic die-offs and population decline since that time. The current estimated numbers of bighorn sheep in hunting units in and around the Payette National Forest has decreased 47 percent since 1981.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large numbers of domestic sheep were grazed on the Payette National Forest. In 1915, 174,445 sheep were permitted to graze on the Payette National Forest. This number declined throughout the 20 century to around 18,300 in 2009. Today, four pennittees are authorized through term grazing permits to graze sheep on the Payette National Forest. Both statutory and case laws infer that a term grazing permit represents a privilege, not a prope11y right, to use National Forest System lands and resources. Procedures exist to modify or cancel term grazing permits. Although the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 directs that National Forests provide for multiple uses, such as range, it also states that some land will be used for less than all resources and periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions are allowed.

The decision says flatly what a number of others have danced around: “A long history of large-scale, rapid, all-age die-offs in bighorn sheep has been documented across Canada and the United States, many presumed associated with domestic animal contact (Shackleton 1999). Although limited knowledge of transmission dynamics exists (Garde et al. 2005), extensive scientific literature supports a relationship between disease in bighorn sheep populations and contact with domestic sheep.” Continue Reading »

Keith Allred at the Boise town hall/Randy Stapilus

The setup was sweet for a candidate for governor. While there’s something of an embunkered feeling to the re-election campaign for Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, his Democratic opponent Keith Allred holds – about three blocks from the Idaho Statehouse, at the grand old Egyptian Theatre – an open, come-all town hall meeting. (Can anyone active in Idaho politics imagine Otter this year doing something similar?) The pitch: Come and talk to the candidate.

The results delivered just that, on one frequency, and did not deliver on another. It was as promised a straight-up Q & A, and it had plenty of substance. Presumably it did exactly what Allred, trained by profession as a mediator, wanted and intended it to do – and all that it should do if campaigns were a matter of evaluating policy. Some other frequencies were missing.

Somewhere between 150 and 200 people were there, and generally not the political usual suspects. Not many of the people you’d expect in Boise to appear at a Democratic governor campaign event, did; of the dozen Democratic legislators from Boise, just three or four turned up. The best-known Idaho political figure in attendance was former state Senator Laird Noh from Twin Falls, a Republican co-chairing the campaign. (Like Allred, Noh is naturally low-key, a smart policy wonk and a skilled legislator willing to work with anyone to achieve a carefully considered objective. The match in personal approach and style is easy to see.) Allred was drawing in some new people; some of the stalwarts seemed less in evidence.

His opening statement, and responses, seemed of a piece with where he had been before, with a mix of policy suggestions and a proposal to try to leverage the views of Idahoans to try to budge the intractable – on tax policy, notably, though other subjects as well. He appealed to the mind, but less so to the gut. If there, as people have remarked about his approach, an absence of red meat, there was also a general absence of emotional content. He made a case for the inadequacy of various Otter-related policies, but he didn’t make the full-throated case of a crusader, exhorting the crowd to join him on a glorious mission to fire the bastards. The setting, alone (but for the moderator, Boise City Council member T.J. Thomson, well off to the side) under the spotlight was ideal for that kind of tub thumper. But this was an appeal to the intellect. This was a prolonged campaign talk with no real red meat, hardly any sound bits, only few applause lines, and those few seemed inadvertent. (There were a few sharply turned lines, though, even if they weren’t punched hard, such as one having to do with education: “Folks, that is the American practice.”) Those weren’t his thing. Continue Reading »

Greyhound at Ontario, Oregon/Randy Stapilus

There’s this, to begin with: The Greyhound bus run scheduled to depart Portland at 11:50 p.m. left at 11:50. That is exactly what the big clock on Union Station north of downtown, and next door to the Greyhound station in PDX, said as the bus cleared the building.

The bus was scheduled to arrived at the bus station just west of downtown Boise, more than 400 miles away and after eight intermediate stops, at 10:05 the next morning. It pulled it at 10:04, and I stepped off the bus at 10:05. The precision was impressive.

I hadn’t been at all sure what to expect. But what emerged over the course of the ride is an argument that “riding the bus” ought not to be considered a second-class (or worse) option.

I’ve not taken a long-distance commercial bus ride for a long time, 25 years at least, maybe more. For a long time, I suspected I never would again: The trend lines seem to be running against commercial bus lines. When you see a business, even one as big as Greyhound, scaling back on lines (the closest GH stop to our residence, a long-time stop at McMinnville, Oregon, was dropped a few years ago), expectations aren’t necessarily of the highest. And there’s something about the bus in the culture, as something people wouldn’t take if driving or flying were available options. A mode of last resort. With, maybe, a clientele reflecting that.

The reality turned out to be a little different, and even intriguing.

The bus was neat, clean and comfortable – the seats more comfortable than most airline seats (not to damn with faint praise). Air circulated well through the coach. The driving was smooth and not especially noticeable (which is a compliment). Some Greyhound buses on the east coast have wifi and other services installed, which would be a nice feature. They’re not on the Pacific-side buses yet, but the people at the Portland station seemed to think that may be coming in the near term; more enhanced buses apparently are rolling off the lines this summer.

How much traffic do these graveyard, long-run routes get? Enough apparently. A bus departing Portland station for points south (to California) at 11:25 was sold out at least a half-hour before boarding. A crowd assembled quickly into line for it at gate 8, and everyone there seemed to get a seat.

My bus was about half-full initially, but at a midway stop at a Pilot truck stop at Stanfield about 3:30 picked up a dozen or so more people, apparently on a run originating from the Seattle area but headed southeast. At peak, it was nearly full. I got the impression that’s more or less average.

Who were all these people traveling hundreds of miles in the middle of the night? Continue Reading »

Dirk Kempthorne

Tomorrow former Interior Secretary (and former Idaho Governor) Dirk Kempthorne is scheduled to appear before the U.S. House Subcommittees on Oversight and Investigations and Energy and Environment, as one of several witnesses about the subject, “The Role of the Interior Department in the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.”

Since Kempthorne left the Interior Department a year and a half ago, and well more than a year before the BP gulf disaster, you might wonder what he’d have to offer. But bear in mind that decisions, policies and personnel in government agencies can continue generating ripple effects for years after the top dudes depart. And bear in mind what was said and reported about Kempthorne’s tenure at Interior.

This isn’t the first time a spotlight has been shone on the department in those years. Of the results of one 2008 inquiry, Representative Nick Rahall summarized: “The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the Interior Department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another’s misdeeds.”

But the issues aren’t just generic at Interior; they are also specific at the Minerals Management Service, the division of Interior responsible for overseeing drilling operations like BP’s in the Gulf, and which has come under a great of criticism in the last couple of months.

During Kempthorne’s tenure, which ran for two and a half years up until January 2009, the agency had a string of problems. The New York Times reported this in September 2008 (after he’d been in charge more than two years): “As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct. . . . The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.”

The hearing cranks up at 8 a.m. MTN/7 a.m. PAC, tomorrow morning. Might be entertaining.